My parents have two temperature-controlled wine storage units, one in my their house and one in my dad’s parents’ house in Hillsborough. The unit in my parents’ house probably holds about 125 bottles, which is quite a bit of wine when you think about it. Besides the wine fridge, there are about a dozen styrofoam cases carrying 3-6 bottles apiece stacked in front of the unit. I have a pretty good idea what’s in both the unit and in the boxes, since my curiosity has led me to open the boxes and peer into the wine fridge on more than a few – heck, more than a bunch – of occasions. As you might expect from someone who is as serious about wine as my father, there’s some serious stuff packed away in there – high-quality California cabs, Brunello di Montalcino, Central Coast syrah, Rosenblum and Ridge zinfandel, classic Sauternes. Over the years, I’ve tasted many of these wines, enough that I can look at a shelf of, say, Rosenblum Pickett Road syrahs or Ridge Lytton Springs and be able to guesstimate – maybe not predict, but close – how many of them will taste if opened at that moment. I’m familiar with his cellar, and that’s a good thing. Familiarity comes from knowledge, knowledge comes from experience, and experiencing wine is what it’s all about.

But if you walk up the stairs in front of the wine fridge, turn right into the storage room (called the “Dorian Gray room” among those in the know), and look down, you’ll see a small, 12-bottle cardboard box.

Peer inside and you’ll see a dozen bottles mottled with brown-grey dust. The labels have faded with time, but you can still read most of them. All 12 carry the name “Mascarello e Figlio Barolo Monprivato.” Of the 12, eight are marked 1971 and the other four 1970. Even before I knew anything about Barolo, about where these bottles had been or what they could possibly be holding, I looked at these bottles and knew this was wine not to mess with. These were big time juice. The Real Deal Holyfield.

But what were they? Where did they come from?

A little research told me this: Mascarello is an old name in Piedmont, a family that has been crafting long-lived wines from the nebbiolo grape for decades. For the past 50 vintages, the steady hand behind the wines was Bartolo Mascarello, who learned the barolo craft from his father Giulio and oversaw the family’s wines before his recent passing (the winery is now operated by his daughter Maria Theresa). In the Mascarello’s nonvintage barolo, grapes from several areas of Piedmont are blended together in a simple style – low yields, ripe fruit, and very little oak. The Monprivato label, however, is made solely from fruit at the Monprivato vineyard, which the Mascarello family has owned partly since 1904 (they now own nearly the entire parcel). Mascarello barolos are known for their rejection of the new trend toward accessible, fruit-and-oak driven wines in favor of wines that take their cue from the soil and slowly build powerful and complex secondary attributes in the bottle. There’s more on the Italian Wine Merchant website, among other places, about Mascarello, the man and the barolo – as long as you avoid the sales pitch. Check it out.

Enough, you’re probably saying. Get to the good stuff, right?

Okay, cut to the chase – after a little bit of negotiating, a little bit of wheedling, a little bit of pestering, my dad opened one of the bottles in the case. Verdict?

Er…just short of gasoline.

According to Dad, anyway. After the wheedling etc., I was a little discouraged. But it makes sense when you hear where these Dirty Dozen were kept for their first 30 years – in a thinly insulated garage in San Francisco, stood up on end, at the mercy of the City’s inclement weather. It would be tough for any wine to live through that, even a wine with legs like this one. I’m still convinced that some life lurks in at least a few of those bottles, but what do you do – open them all at once? What if they’re all gone? I’m not sure a person could take that much despair all at once.

So it that the end, at least for now?

No. There is…another.

What’s that? You say there’s a magnum of the stuff in the storage unit in Hillsborough? Oh…it is so on. And this time, I didn’t even need the wheedling. Sweet!

Now take one look at the label on the magnum of 1971 Monprivato and you know it’s been taken care of for these past few decades. The bottle and the capsule are in good shape, too. Wherever it was for all this time, it was far away from the single bottles, that’s for sure. You start to get a little excited–then you try and restrain yourself, tell yourself that the odds dictate it’ll end up just like the 750 mls. 35 year sis a long time. A lot can happen. The cork comes out…it’s a soggy mess. Uh oh. That’s ok…deep breath. Pour a little into the glass, and what do we have?

While the wine fades to brickdust and orange at the glass, its core is still a beautiful dark ruby. The nose is wonderful, but hard to pin down – roasted figs, maybe, some smoke, even roasted game. In the mouth, there’s a moment of indecision when it feels like it could simply slip away into nothing…then they come out. Leather. Tobacco. Cherries in some kind of liqueur. I’ve never had a wine this old before; these are all new experiences in glass for me. Perfect balance. It’s a wine that doesn’t knock you around; it doesn’t have to. It just builds on itself on the palate, nothing uneven, no off-key notes. It still has very good acidity – how much longer could it have lasted? And the finish is amazing, too, building slowly without uncomfortable heat. What more can I say? I’ve never had a wine like it in my life, and probably never will again. Like most other great wines that have achieved this kind of graceful age, I imagine, it has become something unique.

So THIS is why people pay through the nose for the old stuff.

We ended up opening and drinking this at C’Era Una Volta, an unassuming little trattoria in Alameda. A nice place if you’re ever in the area. Went very well with my truffled gnocchi.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot-this was my wine of the year. Probably the wine of my life, but who’s counting? You can’t – don’t – think about stuff like that while holding that treasure. That all comes after.

So Dad – how many magnums ya got left of that juice?